Slogan contest winner gets promised trip

WHITE

When I conducted a contest some months ago to find an appropriately funny slogan for Pennsylvania, I promised an all-expense paid trip to Freemansburg as first prize.

The winning slogan, offered by Kathy Long of Lehighton, was "The Place that New York and New Jersey Call Home." My own contributions included "Graveyard of the Industrial Revolution," "The First Notch in the Rust Belt" and "Gateway to Delaware."

Frankly, when I offered the big trip to Freemansburg, I was joking. No offense to you Freemansburgers out there, but it struck me as an unlikely tourist destination.

But Long, a noted area storyteller and a tour guide at the Asa Packer Mansion in Jim Thorpe, really seemed interested in seeing the place.

So I contacted Charlie Derr, who not only is a Freemansburg councilman but also is a ranger at Hugh Moore Park in Easton and a Lehigh Canal enthusiast and historian. He has lived in Freemansburg all his life. Would he be willing to serve as our guide for a tour of historic Freemansburg?

He agreed, and we met for lunch last Monday at the Eagle Restaurant & Sports Bar at 324 Main St.

Long and Derr are kindred spirits, fascinated with the history of different ends of the Lehigh Valley. So our lunch featured all kinds of interesting stories. Long later proclaimed Derr a "treasure."

Derr brought along old photos from his collection, mostly focused on the area of the huge grist mill built by wealthy farmer Jacob Geissinger in the early 19th century. You can still see the foundation of the mill at the Lock No. 44 Historic Area, near the Willow Grove Hotel.

Derr said Geissinger was a key figure in the first of three major stages of Freemansburg's development. At that time, this was a farming community.

The second phase was ushered in by the opening of the Lehigh Canal around 1828. The community experienced a canal-related boom that eventually led to its split from Bethlehem Township into its own municipality.

The third stage was propelled by World War I, when Freemansburg began its transformation into a bedroom community for the rapidly growing Bethlehem Steel. Derr says that at one time 80 percent of Freemansburg's blue-collar workers were employed at the Steel.

The Steel's eventual decline had the opposite effect on the town, throwing those steelworkers out of work and draining much of the income from Freemansburg's tax base. Derr remembers a day when there were about 75 businesses along Main Street. Now, there are about a half dozen.

Still, the economic picture has been improving with new housing construction and an influx of younger two-income families from New Jersey and New York. "Freemansburg is right now at a major turning point," Derr said.

With the temperature outside a sticky 90 degrees, we did most of our touring at the lunch table while we dined on a delicious meal of the Portuguese-style food that is the restaurant's specialty. The Eagle, formerly the old Eagle Hotel, just opened this spring after more than a year of reconstruction.

It was the perfect choice for us, offering a glimpse of Freemansburg's brighter economic future while we talked about the highlights of its past.

Afterward, Long and I drove down Lockhouse Road to the historic area, where we saw the canal, the restored buildings and the grist mill's remains. A breeze kicked up, and with the river nearby and the spread of old trees overhead, it felt positively pleasant.

By then, I had come to a startling conclusion: A prize trip to Freemansburg wasn't such a joke after all.